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Peace education curriculum for teacher training introduced nationwide with German support

This week marked the official introduction of a new peace education curriculum at teacher training colleges (TTCs) all around Afghanistan

26.02.2015

With support from the German government, Afghanistan’s Teacher Education Directorate (TED) is currently rolling out the curriculum, and over the past five days, over 120 TTC lecturers from 30 provinces attended a workshop held by master trainers in Kabul’s Teacher Home facility. They learnt how to teach and incorporate the curriculum into their own teacher training methods.

The training for the new peace education curriculum ran for five days at the end of February at the Teacher’s Home in Kabul

The workshop was funded by Germany through its programme for basic and secondary education. In addition, the programme helped fund printing and publishing of around 45,000 new peace education textbooks for TTC students and course guides for TTC lecturers. All materials will be available in colleges and institutes around the country by Nowruz.

The nationwide introduction of the curriculum follows a pilot introductory phase at TTCs in the provinces Badakhshan, Balkh, Takhar, Kunduz, and Sar-i-Pol. The peace education curriculum for Afghanistan’s TTC was developed in 2013 by the Teacher Education Directorate with support from the German Government and UNESCO.

As one female participant from Badakhshan at the workshop in Kabul said, “We still witness violence every day in our communities. With the peace education curriculum, we can show how to tackle the challenge of violence in society. The methods we apply are based on a direct approach and on small steps. For example, teachers can learn how to deal with the small, everyday quarrels in the classroom that can lead to violence if not resolved properly. We are helping future teachers pass on the value of peace to schoolchildren.”

With the introduction of the curriculum, peace education will become compulsory subject at TTCs. Over 75,000 students in teacher education will attend courses in peace education during their two years of teacher training. They will gain the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to act as peace-building role models in their schools and communities.

Further plans for this year include three days of refresher training for TTC lecturers from the five northern provinces in Mazar-e-Sharif. Lecturers from the Teacher Development Centers (TDCs) will also receive training in peace education, ensuring that current teachers and their students benefit from the new course too.

Active since 2005, BEPA is a joint programme of the German Cooperation with Afghanistan im-plemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on be-half of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Swiss Development Cooperation (DEZA). Together with the MoE in Kabul and the education de-partments in the provinces, BEPA aims at establishing a sound foundation for teacher training in Afghanistan.